Floating Sky Ships Are His Obsession

He's the first one out the door when there's a blimp overhead. Friends keep him informed of the Goodyear Blimp's whereabouts when it's in town.

Pozzi knows when a blimp is cruising the neighborhood before he spots it. "I can tell the sound of it."

Several years ago the South Whitehall Township resident drove to Akron, Ohio, where blimps were once made, to tour the Goodyear plant. To his disappointment, he found it had been converted to missile building and was no longer open to the public.

"I was depressed. I went a long way."

Pozzi wanted to see the plant for sentimental reasons. His great-uncle, George Ohl, worked there from about the late 1930s to the early '60s and left Pozzi his collection of blimp mementos.

An Allentown native, Ohl was first employed in Goodyear's tire and rubber plant, then transferred to the dirigible operation where he became a girder assembler. Ohl's job also took him to the West Coast on test trips.

Ohl was less than 5 feet tall. His short stature was an advantage on the job because it enabled him to get into tight spaces inside the blimp to rivet the framework in place.

Pozzi still remembers his introduction to blimps when he was a kid visiting the family bungalow in Vera Cruz. Uncle George was there, opening up picture frames to see what was hidden behind the photographs. One frame had a photograph of a blimp behind it.

"I was fascinated. I had never seen one before."

Pozzi's memories of his uncle are understandably fuzzy. He was in grade school when Ohl died in 1967 after retiring and moving back to Allentown.

Still, Pozzi's interest in blimps did not go unnoticed by his uncle.

"There were a lot of grandchildren, but I was the only one who took any interest."

The modest collection that Pozzi inherited included photographs -- some taken inside the plant, a bank modeled after the Goodyear hangar, books, fabric samples of the blimp's outer covering, and other mementos.

One illustration compares the size of yesterday's mega-blimps with ocean liners and airplanes. The old model blimp, which dwarfs today's smaller airships, was by far the largest of the three.

A first-day cover in the collection celebrates airship and airplane mail service.

Pozzi also inherited his uncle's work uniform, which would probably fit a child of about 10 or 12.

Pozzi looks for blimp mementos at antique toy shows and flea markets but says the items are scarce and usually expensive. He's lucky if he can add one new item a year to the collection.

Pozzi's collection includes two ashtrays that Ohl fashioned from the duralumin girders, a strong but lightweight alloy of aluminum with copper, manganese, magnesium and silicon.

"He loved this stuff," Pozzi says.

Pozzi's grandfather, Charles Ohl, owns an end table made by his brother George from the same material.

About 35 years ago, George took Charles on a tour of the blimp plant. "It was so immense, you can't believe it," Charles recalls.

The hangar was about a quarter mile long and so tall that clouds rolled in through the open doors, causing rain to fall inside the building. "When we were in there, we couldn't even see the roof of the hangar because it was cloudy inside."

The Allentown resident went aboard a huge U.S. Navy blimp. He remembers the cabin as being the size of a Greyhound bus, filled with charts, radio equipment, controls and chairs for the pilots and crew. Although spacious, the aisles were narrow, allowing little room to maneuver.

Ohl also saw a blimp under construction that resembled "the steel beams of a building going up."

For Pozzi, a blimp ride would fulfill one of his longtime dreams. Pozzi has tried everything he could think of, including entering national contests, to win the opportunity. He still hopes to find a way.

"I entered every contest. Fuji had one every year."

One wish will probably never come true.

"I always have regretted that I never saw the big ones. I always have dreams of being back in that time."